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Thu, 26 Nov 2009 Virgin Media brings TiVo back to the UK

While Google to track ads on TiVo in the US

Megan Burger PC Advisor

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TiVo, the personal video recorder (PVR) company as ubiquitous in the US as its UK equivalent Sky+, is coming to the UK, the company and Virgin Media announced this week.

According to the TiVo and Virgin announcement, TiVo will product the interface of Virgin's next-gen set-top boxes. The boxes will provide a converged digital high-definition (HD) TV and broadband experience. The first co-branded product is expected in 2010.

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TiVo president and CEO Tom Rogers said he envisaged the deal as a "long-term, strategic partnership with Virgin Media."

"TiVo will offer Virgin Media's nearly four million UK customers TiVo's advanced television software and user interface on both its traditional and DVR set-top boxes, including TiVo's broadband to the television capabilities," added Rogers.

TiVo also announced a partnership with Google to track viewing habits in the US.

The Google-TiVo ad data deal means TiVo will share anonymous viewing trends collected from its base of subscribers with Google. Google will use that data to help its advertisers understand who they're reaching - and who they aren't - when buying television ads through the company's AdWords TV Ads system.

"None of this is being used to actually target an individual," explains Google spokesperson Eric Obenzinger. "It's more about delivering more accurate reporting back to advertisers so they can inform their future budgeting decisions."

So what does the data actually include? First and foremost, absolutely nothing about who you are.

"When we say that this is all anonymous data, we mean that it is literally anonymous in the strictest definition of the term," says Todd Juenger, vice president & general manager of TiVo Audience Research & Measurement. "We don't collect anything about where it came from."

What TiVo does collect is a log of what commercials you watched and what commercials you skipped. It's like an advanced ratings system, taking TiVo's DVR functionality into account.

"We know that some set-top box out there pressed play on a certain network at a certain time - then we know they hit fast-forward, hit pause, and hit play," Juenger says. "You do that across a million and a half set-top boxes, and you get a collective picture of what percentage of people were watching a certain commercial at a given time."

(JR Rapheal contributed to this story)

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Comments received


Kadoogan said on Thu, 26 Nov 2009

This could be great. I have one of the original UK Tivo machines (still working!) and apart from being limited to recording one channel at a time, it kicks the arse of Sky+. Far more reliable, and far more flexible in the way it picks when your favourite shows are scheduled, and how to deal with clashes.

Tivo's big mistake in the UK was getting Sky to do their marketing for them. It wasn't very good, and after Tivo stopped selling new machines in the UK, Sky came out with Sky+ (some would say ripped off Tivo's idea and made a less reliable version of it!).

I just hope you can plug in a Sky receiver as with the original, and the price is right.

Kevin said on Thu, 26 Nov 2009

I look forward to the next V+ box then - hopefully the menus won't be so laggy!

I wonder how much Virgin will charge for changing the boxes?

Matt said on Thu, 26 Nov 2009

I've never had a problem with either my Sky+ box or my Sky+HD box. To 'kick the arse' of either of those, the TiVo would have to be a seriously good piece of kit. Do I detect an anti-Sky bias in Kadoogan's post?

Rob said on Thu, 26 Nov 2009

I had one of the original Tivo boxes and still do - well, dumped next to my desk because it totally stopped working. So clearly not 100% reliable, but what is? My Sky+ box has died several times and had the engineer out (paid) several times and was replaced again 2 weeks ago. But reliability aside, even after 2 years on Sky+ I still miss the simplicity, flexibility and fantastic user interface of Tivo. You have to use one to understand - otherwise Sky+ seems perfectly good.

Jamie said on Thu, 26 Nov 2009

Matt said "Do I detect an anti-Sky bias in Kadoogan's post?"

Possibly, but I use to have a Tivo 1 and it was far better than Sky Plus. Think of it as OSX or Windows Vista. Sky+ being Vista.

Kadoogan said on Thu, 26 Nov 2009

@Matt

Why does my opinion that Tivo is far better than Sky+ mean I have an anti-Sky bias?

If I had an anti-Sky bias I'd hardly be interested in plugging in a Sky receiver would I? Do you perhaps have a pro-Sky bias?

Kadoogan said on Thu, 26 Nov 2009

@Jamie

That is an excellent comparison. Sky+ (like Vista) seems fine if it is all you know (and you don't get a dodgy one that randomly cancels recordings etc), but I find even the old Tivo I have (must be about 10 years old now!) to be far better to use.

Having realised Virgin is cable only, and not available where I live, unfortunately the new Tivo is no use to me. Just hope the old one carries on working until someone brings out something that is as good as this decade-old technology!

Steve said on Fri, 27 Nov 2009

@Jamie - if Sky+ is Vista, then I guess Virgin Media's current offering is Windows 1.0 ?? :-)

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